IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship

The globally-rotating event brings the world's best to compete in one of the world's most beautiful locations with a with a women's race on September 1, 2018 and the men's race on September 2, 2018

IRONMAN announced that the 2018 IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship has been awarded to Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa. The event will take place on Saturday, September 1st and Sunday, September 2nd, 2018 and is the first time an IRONMAN World Championship event will be held on the African continent.

Located in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, Nelson Mandela Bay first hosted an IRONMAN event in 2004 and has been the site of the Standard Bank IRONMAN African Championship since 2015. The world championship is the pinnacle event in the global IRONMAN 70.3 calendar.

The IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship event expects to attract more than 6,000 athletes from over 100 global qualifying events in locations such as Australia, China, Spain, South Africa and the Americas.

Nicknamed "The Friendly City," Port Elizabeth was founded in 1820 and has steadily grown into an economic hub of more than 300,000 inhabitants. In 2010, Port Elizabeth played host to eight games of the FIFA World Cup held in the country. It is also considered the southernmost large city on the continent, just south of Cape Town.
The championship is part of a week-long festival which will include a range of lifestyle events for the community and visitors to enjoy.

"We are excited to welcome triathletes from throughout our region and around the world and show them true South African hospitality. For more than a decade IRONMAN has had the privilege of working with Nelson Mandela Bay and the city of Port Elizabeth to put up world-class events," said Hans Peter Zurbruegg, Managing Director of IRONMAN Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

The IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship was created in 2006 and held in Clearwater, Florida until 2011. It then moved to Henderson, Nevada, where athletes were treated to a much more challenging course. In 2014, the event took place in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec—its first stop on the new global rotation for the championship. The event headed to Europe for the first time in 2015, where Zell am See, Austria, hosted an epic and memorable event. In 2016, Australia's beautiful Sunshine Coast hosted an incredible race week.

More than 3,000 athletes from around the world (who qualified at another IRONMAN 70.3 event) will compete at this prestigious race. More than 130,000 athletes participate in a season of qualifying races for the championship, a series which consists of over 85 events in locations such as Australia, Germany, South Africa and Switzerland. Participants in the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship will range in age from 18 to 75-plus, and will represent over 70 countries.